Instapaper iOS app gains location-based article updates

The app can grab your reading queue when you enter or leave pre-set locations.

Instapaper's new feature lets you update articles in the background when you enter or leave set locations.

Few things are more infuriating than when your plane takes off and you load up Instapaper to get your read on, only to find that you forgot to update it with all your newly saved articles before you left home. The same thing could happen when you go underground on the subway after leaving work. Whatever the case, Instapaper's inability to update your articles in the background has been an ongoing frustration for many users, but that's now a thing of the past thanks to its latest update to version 4.2.2.

In addition to miscellaneous bug fixes, the update released over the weekend allows users to set geofenced locations for when the app should look for new articles that you may have saved from another device or the Web. You can find this in the app's settings under "Background Update Locations"—tapping this will prompt you to turn the feature on and then set a current location to get started. You can set multiple locations like your home and office, or your friend's house and your favorite coffee shop. When you enter or leave any of those places, Instapaper will take a gander at what might be stored on the server and bring it down to the app for you.

According to the Instapaper blog, this feature was borrowed from News.me (another app quickly climbing our favorites list), and creator Marco Arment claims the feature hasn't noticeably affected his battery life after two weeks. I haven't been using the update for long enough to offer my own assessment, but I am happy to try it out, as those scenarios I described in the intro happen to me on a regular basis. And, according to Arment, "Instapaper stores these locations only within the app itself, only for this purpose, and does not share them or send them to any web service (not even its own servers). I respect your privacy."